Hacking Interesting Find w/ 3DS Demo Carts

drfsupercenter

Flash Cart Aficionado
OP
Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2008
Messages
1,909
Trophies
1
XP
1,163
Country
United States
I'm not sure if the hacking forum is the best place for this, but I noticed something interesting that I thought I'd share.

I recently obtained a NFR kiosk demo cartridge of Mario and Luigi Dream Team (it's the newest 3DS kiosk demo as far as I know)... no I will not tell you how or where, don't ask.

Like all the other NFRs I've collected, if you insert the cartridge into your 3DS, it powers it on and boots the game up right away. Since it's a demo and is designed to be used in retail environments, it also disables use of the home button, so all you can do is hold power to turn the system off - and as soon as you turn it back on, it insta-boots the game again.

However, if you have the system turned on, and on the main menu when you insert one of these demo carts, it will show up like a regular game and behave as such (until you start it, then Home gets disabled etc)

Just like M&L Dream Team's retail counterpart, the demo "requires" firmware version 5.1. I tested this out on my Gateway-compatible 3DS XL which is on firmware 4.5 - when I insert the demo cart, it says I need to update to 5.1. However, if I stick the cart in with the system turned off, it boots just fine and doesn't require an update!

Meaning the game works perfectly fine on 4.5. I believe this has something to do with the game being made with an older SDK, similar to what was mentioned in another thread here, but I thought that it was worth noting that it *is* possible for a 3DS system to bypass the mandatory update if it's signed as a demo cartridge from Nintendo. (No hacking required)

The real question would be, how would one of these games react on a very old (let's say, firmware 2.0 or something) 3DS... I wonder if it would attempt to boot and just glitch out instead. If anyone has a 3DS on very old firmware that would like to test it, send me a PM, I'm interested in the name of science ;)
 

mathieulh

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Feb 28, 2008
Messages
378
Trophies
0
Website
keybase.io
XP
897
Country
France
3DS Kiosk (Demo) games are flagged as auto-boot so they will start automatically if you boot the 3DS with the card inserted. While doing so, it bypasses any updates requirements.

Mystery solved.
 

tHciNc

Total Random
Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2006
Messages
861
Trophies
1
XP
1,718
Country
New Zealand
This stuffed has been covered on 3dbrew

Notable features of demo titles:
  • Auto-boot demos generally disable the functionality of the home button.
  • The New Super Mario Bros 2 demo, retained the functionality of the home button, and had an timer which triggered the demo to quit after a period of inactivity.
Auto-boot cartridges, can bypass some of the functions of the Home Menu. Auto Booted software:
  • Doesn't show usage history in the Activity Log
  • Bypasses Parental controls
  • Bypasses Forced Game Card Updates
  • Bypasses Initial 3DS Setup
  • The console does not have a friends list presence.
  • Is still subject to region lock(see below).
Region lock is still active, so the home menu will refuse to launch demos with incorrect region lock will not load, displaying "An Error has Occurred". However, game card update partition checks do not appear to be done, which may allow launching demos that have region free encoding, but have an alternate region update partition.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3DSGuy

drfsupercenter

Flash Cart Aficionado
OP
Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2008
Messages
1,909
Trophies
1
XP
1,163
Country
United States
Interesting, I was under the impression that NSMB2 was just an identical copy of the retail cart. I'll have to try my NFR demo out and see if there really is a timer.
 

drfsupercenter

Flash Cart Aficionado
OP
Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2008
Messages
1,909
Trophies
1
XP
1,163
Country
United States
Also, it's curious that it would even have an update partition on the cart if the system bypasses it anyway. I wonder why Nintendo did that.
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
  • SylverReZ @ SylverReZ:
    @mthrnite, Cheetah Girls, the sequel to Action 52's Cheetah Men.
    +2
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Pokemon Black I played that one a lot
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Honestly never messed with Pokémon on ds much
  • mthrnite @ mthrnite:
    I played pokemon once, was bored, never tried again
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Oh Dragon Quest IX
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Spent like 5 hours on switch one never touched it again
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Sentinel of the stary skies
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Ds is 20 years old this year
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    So MJ no longer wants to play with it?
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    He put it down when the 3ds came out
  • SylverReZ @ SylverReZ:
    @K3Nv2, RIP Felix does great videos on the PS3 yellow-light-of-death.
  • Jayro @ Jayro:
    Eventhough the New 3DS XL is more powerful, I still feel like the DS Lite was a more polished system. It's a real shame that it never got an XL variant keeping the GBA slot. You'd have to go on AliExpress and buy an ML shell to give a DS phat the unofficial "DS Lite" treatment, and that's the best we'll ever get I'm afraid.
    +1
  • Jayro @ Jayro:
    The phat model had amazingly loud speakers tho.
    +1
  • SylverReZ @ SylverReZ:
    @Jayro, I don't see whats so special about the DS ML, its just a DS lite in a phat shell. At least the phat model had louder speakers, whereas the lite has a much better screen.
    +1
  • SylverReZ @ SylverReZ:
    They probably said "Hey, why not we combine the two together and make a 'new' DS to sell".
  • Veho @ Veho:
    It's a DS Lite in a slightly bigger DS Lite shell.
    +1
  • Veho @ Veho:
    It's not a Nintendo / iQue official product, it's a 3rd party custom.
    +1
  • Veho @ Veho:
    Nothing special about it other than it's more comfortable than the Lite
    for people with beefy hands.
    +1
  • Jayro @ Jayro:
    I have yaoi anime hands, very lorge but slender.
  • Jayro @ Jayro:
    I'm Slenderman.
  • Veho @ Veho:
    I have hands.
    Veho @ Veho: +1